I think the he above is in reference to Nakasone, though I’m not sure. Abe’s father was of course involved in the recruit scandal, and that pretty much cost him his career, and certainly his chance at being Prime Minister. And he passed away soon after the scandal broke…

Chris: Abe’s minister for ‘gender equality’ is Sanae Takaichi. She is a woman who believes that by law, all women should have to take their husband’s name after marriage. She, however, has retained her maiden name (professionally) in order to see what it’s like.

This is sort of a strawman I’m erecting, but I can’t see how any responsible person could call for Yanagisawa’s resignation, but give Ibuki, Aso, or Kyuma a pass. Not only have they misspoken on a comparable scale, their inane remarks were not tempered by an valid underlying point or any demonstrable competence.

The call for resignation was not so much to say that there are really grounds for forcing any of them out (there aren’t) as a wish. At this point, playing the odds, whoever replaces them is likely to do a better job of it.

I definitely agree with your point about the DPJ having missed an opportunity to show the public that they stand for something substantive. I’m glad to see that they’ve made attempts at holding the kantei’s feet to the fire, but it is high time they stood up and moved forward with some concrete policy initiatives. Given that a good portion of the disaffection with the Abe administration seems to stem from a lack of details and specific plans to implement his sweeping initiatives.

As for Nakasone, it’s not saying much, but he garners a bit more respect than his fellow former PMs. The fact that he’s such a horse trader himself struck me. As in, “Damn, even Nakasone thinks this is a bit out of hand.” He was a bit more direct than I would have expected.

The main thing, though, is that Nakasone was correct in his criticisms. That he also marched in step with the faction system may make him a hypocrite, but it doesn’t make him any less right.
I think your criticism of Abe, in that he didn’t check for competence and filled his barrel with big-name, scandal-prone monkeys is right on.

In this case, though, I don’t think it’s an either-or between appointing cronies or appointing people based on deals, I think it’s both.
Nakasone did it, too, but the criticism is fair.

You touched on something very important near the end there: public opinion. I think it’s fair to say that the importance of public opinion right now is greater than it ever has been before, which obviously changes the nature of any kind of political scandal.

Thanks for the link and the insightful comment.

I do think you have a point to an extent — even if Yanagisawa ultimately decided *not* to use the “birthing machines” metaphor, the argument he made in that speech wouldn’t have changed. It still centers on the idea that women are to blame for the low birth rate rather than the inhibiting policies of the post-war era (the sentence *before* you started to quote him was something along the lines of “women just aren’t having children” 女性はなかなか子供を産んでくれない), and that so far remains not only the official government opinion but the crux of the stopgap measures to fight the low birth rate (handouts to women who give birth etc). If the opposition party weren’t so fixated on taking his words out of context for partisan reasons they could have turned Yanagisawa’s screwup as an opportunity to showcase more comprehensive policies to make life more hospitable for women. Working to end institutional sexism, improving schools, bridging the gap between the sexes, helping out the growing number of people who are losing out to globalization, and creating a more dynamic economy with more work opportunities in general will go a long way toward solving a lot of problems including “encouraging” women to have more kids. Crazily enough, the DPJ is actually running on the slogan of improving people’s lives, so why aren’t they bringing their ideas to the forefront?

A recent essay by Hatoyama points out that the LDP in general, and the cabinet ministers in particular, are stuck in a mercantilistic mindset in which the good of the nation comes first, whereas the DPJ’s policies put the people first. There’s a certain consistency to that attitude — the LDP, especially its more conservative side, see themselves as the heirs to the pre-war legacy and to an extent maintain a pretty archaic worldview.

Also, I don’t see why you find Nakasone’s article so interesting. His arguments read like more of a pep talk directed at Abe and his supporters more than anything else. The criticism that Abe picked his cabinet from among his supporters and cronies isn’t really fair, especially coming from a shady politician like Nakasone. What is politics but a neverending saga of horsetrading? There are worse things than choosing your loyalists to work with you that are actually going on — such as the practice of giving cabinet posts to Upper House members and Komeito regardless of merit simply due to the deals reached with those two groups. Abe’s appointment issues stem not simply from picking people he wanted to work with, but from a) Picking people without making sure they wouldn’t be slammed with scandals within months of their appointment; and b) Putting too many big personalities in the same room, making it hard for the cabinet to function smoothly. These issues aren’t as sexy as simply deriding Abe as a distributor of political spoils, but they’re even more important, I think.

One more valid, if by now cliche, part of Nakasone’s point is that Abe can’t afford to try and go back to the bad old days that Nakasone enjoyed. He should know — he was involved in the Recruit scandal, an event that helped usher in this new political era of single-member electoral districts and actually caring about public opinion polls.

Anyway, I think you’re onto something when you say that the cabinet ministers don’t really see a problem with the way they run things, but so far I don’t see a compelling reason why they need to resign right now. They aren’t criminals as far as we know, and they aren’t trying to force radical change on the country — they’re just lame and mistake-prone. There is plenty of time for the opposition to exploit the cabinet’s weaknesses, make a case for its own policies, and hopefully make the LDP-Komeito connection look to shady for the average citizen to vote for (Shizuka Kamei seems to be working on that).

With regard to DeOrio’s remark that this isn’t the first time a high-ranking official made sexist comments, I did a little digging and found Ishihara’s bomb from 2001 (Shukan Josei). In that interview he details a theory that he agrees with:

It says that old women who live after they have lost their reproductive function are useless and are committing a sin.

Ishihara was able to wiggle out of that situation pretty quickly, and was subsequently reelected by a comfortable margin, so perhaps it’s a good sign that people the media and politicians have chosen to confront this issue head on this time.

Yanagisawa first said that the number of women between 15 and 50 was limited. Then, in another sentence, he said that the number of machines was limited. Now, I agree that he meant women, but I think he could have been talking about humans in general, the cogs in this wheel of production. After all, the government has an interest in the birthrate at least partially as an economic factor or for reasons of national power. The MHLW may love babies, but that’s not why they’re in this.

In both business and government, people are often discussed in terms of their functions and utility to the problem at hand. How about “Human Resources”? It is meant to be softer than “Personnel,” but, in reality, commodifies people.

Yanagisawa’s weakness was in not explaining what he meant. He should have set the analogy up. I can see why people would be offended, but I don’t find it viscerally offensive.

His second comment, implying that there’s a norm people have to live up to, that there’s something wrong with those who deviate, that they are unhealthy, is vastly more offensive and is the comment that really worries me. The implication that people are somehow not doing their part if they don’t do what the government needs is abhorrent. The implication that this is not primarily a political problem is what angers me.

Equating people with machines is rude, but Yanagisawa is not the first prominent politician to do so, and it is not enough, in and of itself, to necessitate his resignation.

As for his competence, I’m inclined to agree with you. Ironically, though, on this front, I think the meaning behind his “birthing machines” remark was actually spot on: basically, the population is what it is and can only be asked to have children. It marks a realization that other factors are going to have to be looked at.

Alex, I agree with you that Yanagisawa just has to ride this out. I don’t think, though, that the Diet has been silent. I think the DPJ has enjoyed this and I was quite pleased to see Komiyama go after him.

Abe has stepped in and has basically protected him. All the senators are basically mute on this topic to the point that the only reason for him to resign would be to court the electorate. And why even do that? They are nearly assured of winning the next election.

So the “real” pressure for Yanagisawa is to just ride this wave, do as little as possible to piss people off and it will, as most scandals, just blow over. A sad statement you say? Perhaps, but it seems like the truth to me.

I still say that a machine is something that serves a purpose. Using the word is offensive. Of course I agree that there a deeper issues, but on a visceral level, the comment was offensive. It is an insult to women, because of the line of thinking it betrays: women are machines for giving birth, (men walking paychecks for propping up spending).

I think Hama does write some intelligent things, and parts of this editorial were on, but you’re right in how she exaggerated. The thing is, she can just ride that wave of righteous indignation, as you put it. She’s done so without getting to the point, which Nakasone did without explicitly saying so: This guy doesn’t belong in this job (nor do most of the folks in the cabinet). But that’s a parliamentary system. And in Japan, the ministers are going to be loaded with ex-MOF, ex-METI and ex-MOFA characters.

The big issue, then, is that this man is in charge of something he obviously can’t handle: fixing the nation’s birth rate. He’s so out of touch with the people who are 25-40 and childless that it’s not even funny. It took these statements to make that screamingly obvious, but who’s surprised? It strikes me as odd that people want him to resign because he said an offensive thing rather than because he’s in the wrong position.

His remarks were not a women’s issue any more than the birthrate is a women’s issue.

I believe they were a women’s issue. They were part of other issues as well, but they were also a women’s issue. Not that I can speak for any women, I’d rather hear from them directly.